home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
- Path: sparky!uunet!sun-barr!ames!sgi!rhyolite!vjs
- From: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver)
- Subject: Re: ping works, but ftp/telnet get "no route to host"
- Message-ID: <nk9vm00@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com>
- Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc. Mountain View, CA
- References: <BrruC8.FEo@spock.dis.cccd.edu> <BrsM1C.36v@cs.columbia.edu>
- Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 16:14:36 GMT
- Lines: 39
-
- In article <BrsM1C.36v@cs.columbia.edu>, ji@cs.columbia.edu (John Ioannidis) writes:
- > ....
- > The site you are trying to ping is running a firewall gateway, because
- > they're too lazy to beef up their host security and are relying on the
- > firewall to protect themselves against external attacks....
-
-
- That you're return address is at a university is somehow unsurprising.
-
-
- Many of us out here in the commercial world have thousands of machines
- on corporate networks with minimum internal, inter-machine security.
-
- Using firewalls allows us to do the jobs we're paid to do without
- spending so much time fiddling with "security," whether choosing
- passwords, typing them, or using FTP instead of rcp (.rhosts are
- unsafe, remember?). It is true that parts of the commercial world do
- not mind wasting high salaries and far greater "lost opportunity
- costs" to have all machines on their networks "secure." As far as I
- know, all such commercial organizations are not what anyone would call
- nimble or industry leading. (Yes, before everyone asserts their
- Military Industrial employer is different, I'm sure there must be at
- least one exception.)
-
- Firewalls are like guards at the front desk instead of patroling the
- halls. Some places have guards in the halls, rules about leaving
- papers on your desk, and so forth, but many of us decline to work in
- such places.
-
- It is nicest to not have any guards, just as it is nicest to not worry
- about locking your door. Unfortunately, zillions of tiny minds,
- frequently jejune university students, have proven that the Internet is
- too much like a big city to do without locks.
-
- To have someone at a big city university suggest that we lock our
- bedrooms instead of our front doors is either amusing or offensive.
-
-
- Vernon Schryver, vjs@sgi.com
-